I, Black Cherry

What happens,
when your life is a movement being paraded as a trend?
Flavour of the month — I, Black cherry,
watching myself drip from salivating mouths full of my flesh —
and empty platitudes.

What happens,
when you’re in between days —
claiming the space between the ink and the page,
moving five hundred miles closer to somewhere new,
until you’re another you — without yesterday’s muse?

What happens,
whilst you’re making your way —
and halfway to nowhere, you run out of time?
Do your dreams just implode inside the Universe of you?
Scattered in pieces — as versions of you die,
out of breaths, do you just return to the sky?

What happens,
if you defy expectations — and survive and survive?
Is the you that remains, whole enough to thrive?
Or, rewired too much by the trauma —
becoming disagreeable to the revolution trying to take place in your mind?

What if,
there were no such thing as adversity to endure?
Even the sky falling down — wouldn’t seem absurd at all.
If wisdom fell like raindrops on our heads,
could we live a whole life full of satisfaction —
looking forward to death?

What even,
is this recklessly undefined life?
A twisted paradox, a heavy — heavy load.
A failed experiment, ready to explode — then reload?
I, Black cherry, gaze at the stars and look in the mirror,
I peer behind the curtain like Dorothy in Oz absorbing the confusion.
I wonder, is it sad at all to witness the end of an illusion?

What,
do we really know about hope —
when we don’t know what we’ve got til its gone?
Should we fake paradise until freedom?
It’s a familiar tale of woe, we’ve had a shit year,
perhaps it just means — its been the most brutally sincere.
Time moves us along like the rhythm of a Dionne Farris song.
Will the crisis become us —
or just leave us like pennies with holes in them?

Authors note: This is the first poem I’ve written anywhere for 22 days. I owe its existence to Harlem by Langston Hughes and Hopeless by Dionne Farris. Stay well everyone. #BecauseOfThemWeCan 🙏🏾